We headed out to a neighboring tree farm yesterday morning to find our Christmas tree. Ed’s brother Chris and his wife Melissa hadn’t gotten their tree yet either, so they went along with us. The tree farm is owned by my grandfather’s cousins, Dudley and Vicky Harrison, and also backs up to the water company property, so it’s a nice, private place for them to live. They had Christmas songs playing and free coffee, tea and hot chocolate for everyone. We walked around for a while until we found our tree.

There were trees of all different sizes, many too large for us and some that were still too small. They told us to choose any, and if we liked a large one we could cut off the top and they’d give away the rest to anybody who wanted greens.

We found one that was a little bit too big for our house, so Ed cut it down and then trimmed a couple of feet off the bottom. After we cut down our tree, we talked to Dudley and Vicky about making maple syrup, saw pictures of their turkey and deer sightings and shared our own stories, and sipped our hot chocolate to warm up.

Our Christmas tree fits perfectly in our breakfast nook. We don’t have a table there yet, and since we eat at the kitchen counter, building a table has fallen further and further down Ed’s to-do list. I love the way the lights reflect off of the windows of the octagon. We’ll probably finish decorating the tree tomorrow.

Beautiful tree- I use the asme artifical trees again and again. I don’t have a thing against real cut trees, just hate the mess. And I can leave my tree up until easter! When I was younger I use to grow trees at my parents lake property in Shelton, Washington (Christmas Tree Capitol) It was quite sustainable as well- I would go along in the ditches and pull the seedlings up and replant them- worked out pretty good- I got nice seedlings for free and the county wouldn’t go along and cut them to keep the ditches clear!